You know old saying; “the third time is the charm!”  It apparently turned out that way for slugger Manny Ramirez and the L.A. Dodgers who failed in two previous attempts to reach contractual agreements.

AP Sports Writer Beth Harris outlines background and the terms of the deal for Yahoo sports:

Manny Ramirez and the Dodgers officially agreed Wednesday on a $45 million, two-year contract that keeps him with the NL West champions. The slugger can void the second season of the deal and again become a free agent.

“We got a great meeting,” Ramirez told KCAL-TV as he emerged from a mandatory physical in suburban Inglewood. “I’m happy to be here. We got some unfinished business, and that’s why I’m here.”

The Dodgers confirmed the deal shortly after Ramirez passed the physical. He is set to meet with the media Thursday morning in Phoenix.

Ramirez gets $10 million this year, and $15 million in deferred money with no interest, payable in $5 million installments each Jan. 15 from 2010 through 2012. If it winds up as a two-year deal, he gets $10 million each season, with three payments of $8,333,333 each Jan. 15 from 2011-13.

Ramirez has until November to decide whether to void the second season.

Los Angeles’ original offer was for $45 million in guaranteed money, including a $4 million buyout of a 2011 option, and gave the Dodgers the ability to maintain control of Ramirez over three years. It also did not include the no-trade provision.

Ramirez will make a $1 million commitment to the Dodgers Dream Foundation as part of the deal.

Ramirez helped Los Angeles win the division by hitting .396 with 17 homers and 53 RBIs in 53 regular-season games. In the playoffs, he batted .520 with four homers, 10 RBIs, nine runs and 11 walks in eight games.

“We all wanted the same thing and that’s what was apparent to me,” said Torre, who left spring training in Arizona with Colletti to travel to Malibu.

“After last year and the time he spent with us, we knew we wanted him back. It was just a matter of finding that common ground,” Torre said.

Los Angeles announced last week that Ramirez declined its latest offer, a $25 million, one-year contract with a $20 million player option for 2010. That deal would have included deferred payments of $10 million each in 2011 and 2012 and $5 million in 2013.

Boras countered with a proposal that included no deferred money, leaving the sides about $3 million apart in present-day value.

At the time the Dodgers acquired him from Boston, Ramirez’s contract was amended to eliminate the $20 million team options it included for 2009 and 2010. The new agreement leaves him with a small increase but likely fell short of what Ramirez hoped to gain on the free-agent market.

Colletti initially tried to re-sign Ramirez, offering a two-year, $45 million deal with a buyout or a club option that was ignored by Boras and later withdrawn by the team.

Colletti initially tried to re-sign Ramirez, offering a two-year, $45 million deal with a buyout or a club option that was ignored by Boras and later withdrawn by the team.
 
The Dodgers’ second attempt involved salary arbitration in December, but Ramirez said no to that, too.

Ramirez was MVP of the 2004 World Series—Boston’s first championship since 1918—and helped the Red Sox to another title in 2007. But he often failed to run hard to first base on grounders and repeatedly said he didn’t want to play for Boston, which lured him from Cleveland after the 2000 season with a $160 million, eight-year contract.

Ramirez, despite his career 527 homers, nearly 2,400 hits, 1,725 RBIs, career .314 BA, and despite what he brought the Dodgers in their 2008 drive for the NL West Division title, has been known in recent years, during his 7 1/2 years with Boston, for a lack of hustle both running the bases and patrolling leftfield.

Yahoo sports’ Jeff Passan adds these thoughts on Ramirez;

No matter what Ramirez did in the season’s final two months – and, mercy, was it ever brilliant… – nothing diminishes his fundamental truth. Ramirez could care less about the team for which he plays so long as it dumps the most money into his bank account.

To so blithely reward a mercenary is irresponsible of the Dodgers and sends the wrong message. Namely, success has a two-pronged price: the $45 million the Dodgers agreed Wednesday to pay Ramirez over two years and the knowledge that they ultimately will kowtow if prodded the right way.

…The question becomes whether Ramirez will quit on the Dodgers the same way he did Boston last season. And before Ramirez loyalists quibble over the word “quit” by pointing to his numbers, may we remember: Ramirez could hit .300 blindfolded and slug home runs with a 2×4. The surer sign of Ramirez’s effort came when he started mimicking a tortoise on his way to first base, or swinging through three Mariano Rivera pitches like he was late for a dinner date, or claiming his knee was injured, then forgetting at the medical examination which one, exactly, hurt.

Yes, that is the man on whom the Dodgers are staking their season.

In short, the Dodgers can have him, the Ramirez diamond and the Ramirez curse; its a Blessing that he’s not with my Phillies!

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A few days ago, Yahoo’s Big League Stew blogged about the financial bind in which Phillies reliever Scott Eyre finds himself.

Veteran lefthander Eyre came to the Phillies at the beginning of August and was nearly perfect in spelling JC Romero, the other lefthanded set-up man, and giving up only 3 runs on 3 hits, including 1 homer in 14 1/3 innings while going 3-0 during the Phils’ great stretch run to the division championship, the NL pennant and World Series Championship.  Eyre logged 3 innings of work in 5 post-season appearances, only giving up 1 run on 3 hits against the Milwaukee Brewers in the Phillies’ only division series loss.

But this spring, Eyre arrived in training camp carrying an extra external unwanted burden not of his own making or responsibility.
Eyre’s assets, as are those of several other MLB players and athletes from other sports, currently remain frozen due to the ongoing investigation into an alleged $8 billion Stanford Financial fraud case.

At one point, Eyre confided that, although having signed a 1 year, $2 million deal with the Phillies in the off-season, he had but $13 to his name and his family’s bills were going unpaid due to seizure of assets.

Fortunately, Eyre had a little money in another bank account and has been able to feed his family during the trying period.  Also, fortunately, Eyre is a member of a team with a heart.  Yahoo sports reports that  the Phillies have agreed to advance him and undisclosed amount on his $2 million pay for the season in order to see him and his family through this difficult ordeal.

The Yahoo report on the Phillies’ efforts to help notes Eyre’s comments;

“If we paid our bills, we wouldn’t have any money,” Eyre said. “I’ll pay (the Phillies) back whenever I can I invested in (Stanford) three years ago (and) thought it was too good to be true - and it was.”

Eyre isn’t alone. Johnny Damon and Xavier Nady of the New York Yankees and Carlos Pena of the Tampa Bay Rays also have been affected by the Stanford scandal.

All four major leaguers have had some of their assets frozen by federal regulators. The players said they’ve been told by federal officials that their money is safe, but access to it is being blocked temporarily while the investigation proceeds.

“It’s not just the big people - not that I consider myself big - but there are people out there without a voice,” Eyre said. “I didn’t want this to be the ‘Woe is Scott Eyre Story.’

“Thousands and thousands of people who invested their money in Stanford can’t use their money right now. (They) can’t pay their bills the only reason I said anything at all is because of the people that don’t have access to media, so the government can realize (this is happening).”

Eyre, who during spring training stays with his family at his offseason home in nearby Bradenton, Fla., said several teammates also volunteered to cut him a check to help out.

Even though the team stepped up to help him, Eyre questions why the government took an action that has made life difficult for so many honest investors.

“I don’t think they needed to freeze everything - that’s just stupid,” Eyre said.

Sports writer Todd Zolecki reports the Phillies view of the situation for MLB.com:

“We understand the circumstances,” Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. said before Wednesday’s Grapefruit League opener… “Typically, our policy is not to advance dollars. That’s just not what we do, but this certainly is a different type of circumstance that several players are having to deal with.”

One can only hope that the other MLB clubs whose players find themselves in this situation, as well as teams in other sports with members in this bind, act as thoughtfully, responsively and from the heart as have the Phillies.

As for lefthanded reliever Scott Eyre, I’m looking forward to seeing him and the team not miss a beat in the lefthanded set-up role while Romero is on the shelf during his 50 game suspension.

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On Sunday afternoon, the Phillies and their slugging 1st baseman Ryan Howard finally found common ground outside the arbitration hearing room as Howard signed a 3 year deal worth $54 million.  With this deal, both sides saved themselves from the possible destructiveness and ill will of a potentially contentious arbitration hearing.

Howard, the 2006 NL MVP and MLB homer and RBI leader in 2006 and 2008, will earn $15 million this season, $19 million next year and $20 million in 2011.

AP sports writer Rob Maaddi reports the reactions of both the Phillies and Ryan Howard to the 3 year deal:

“The things that have happened prior with Ryan, it was really nothing adversarial, although I know with some people it was depicted that way,” Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. said. “We just agreed to disagree. It didn’t make us love Ryan any less, and it didn’t make Ryan love us any less.”

“I’m happy to have this done and to know that I’ll be in Philadelphia for at least another three years,” Howard said in a statement.

“We’re very pleased to have avoided the arbitration process, not just for this year, but also for the next two,” Amaro said. “Ryan is clearly one of the top power hitters and run producers in the major leagues and is a very important part of our championship club.”

Maaddi also traces back Howard’s ascendancy on the club:

A fifth-round draft pick in 2001, Howard quickly established himself as one of the premier sluggers in the majors once he finally reached the big leagues. His path to Philadelphia initially was blocked by Jim Thome, who signed an $85 million, six-year contract in December 2002.

An injury to Thome during the 2005 season paved the way for Howard, who had 22 homers and 63 RBIs in just 88 games to win the NL Rookie of the Year award.

He followed that up with one of the best sophomore seasons in history. Howard had 58 homers, 149 RBIs and a .313 average in ’06, nearly lifting the Phillies into the playoffs. He batted .268 with 47 homers and 136 RBIs in ’07 in what was considered a down year for him.

Since moving into the starting lineup for good on July 1, 2005, Howard leads the majors in home runs (174) and RBIs (493).

Most impressive, he’s done it with raw, natural power and a sweet left-handed stroke… The 6-foot-4, 252-pound Howard comes from a big family and has two brothers bigger than him.

In 2008, Howard hit .269 in the post-season, although hitting .285 with 3 homers and 6 RBIs in the World Series and blasting 2 of the 3 homers and driving in 5 of those runs in the big 10-2 game 4 win over Tampa Bay.  The Phils took the 2008 World Series by a 4-1 margin in games over the Rays.

With a 3 year deal in hand, a clear mind and good health, hopefully the big slugger can now start working on performance priorities;  i.e. upping his production over last April’s 5 homer, .172 BA production and his lifetime April BA of .230 as well as drastically reducing his strikeouts from last season’s 199.  He’s struck out a total of 692 times in his 4 year career.

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Last Saturday, assistant general manager Scott Proefrock announced that the Phillies and pinch-hitter extraordinaire and sometimes 3rd baseman  Greg Dobbs inked a 2-year, $2.5 million deal.  Yesterday, sources indicated that outfielder Jayson Werth has a 2-year, $10 million deal and and that middle reliever Chad Durbin is on-board with a 1-year deal worth $1,635,000.

MLB.com’s Alden Gonzalez describes Dobb’s 2008 season:

Greg Dobbs finished the 2008 season with just 226 at-bats, less than half of what a full-time major league player usually accumlates over the course of a 162-game season. Yet Dobbs’ .301 batting average, nine home runs, and 40 RBI played a pivotal role in the Phillies’ second straight National League East championship, which they parlayed into a playoff run for the ages, during which the utility infielder and pinch-hitter extraordinaire went 7-for-14 at the plate.

Dobbs and the Phillies agreed to a contract that will pay the utility infielder $2.5 million over 2 years, buying out his first 2 years of arbitration and giving one of the unheralded stars of the 2008 championship team some financial stability.

For the record, Dobbs doesn’t expect his role to be much different from what it was last year, when he led all major leaguer pinch-hitters with 22 hits and was second with 16 RBI.

With Pedro Feliz, back from off-season surgery, as the starting 3rd baseman and newly signed veteran lefthanded hitting Raul Ibanez seemingly noe a fixture in leftfield, Dobbs’ role seems once again to be as a back-up, sometimes late-inning replacement in leftfield and as a pinch-hitter.

AP Sports Writer Dan Gelston reports his source’s disclosure of Werth’s deal, gives background on the rightfielder’s 2008 season and recalls Durbin’s 2008 season:

Werth’s deal was disclosed by a person who spoke on condition of anonymity because it is subject to a physical. Werth will receive a $1 million signing bonus, $2 million this season and $7 million in 2010.

He hit .273 with 24 home runs and 67 RBIs for the World Series champions, and would have been eligible for free agency after the season.

Durbin went 5-4 with a 2.87 ERA in a career-high 71 appearances last season, his first with the Phillies. He led NL relievers in innings (87 2-3) and appeared in six playoff games.

“Chad came to Philadelphia and in his first season of being a full-time reliever helped solidify what we believe to be one of the best bullpens in baseball,” assistant general manager Scott Proefrock said.

With 7 of 8 players avoiding arbitration hearings, only 1st baseman Ryan Howard remains on the Phils’ arbitration docket.  On Tuesday, the slugger who hit 48 homers and drove in 146 runs in 2008, has hit 177 homers in 4 seasons but has struck out 692 times in that span asked for a raise from $10 million (2008 arbitration award) to $18 million. The two sides are $4 million apart as the Phils offered $14 million.

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Ace lefthander Cole Hamels, MVP winner in both the NLCS and the World Series, reliever Ryan Madson, who saw action in 11 of the Phillies 13 post-season games, centerfielder Shane Victorino, along with Joe Blanton, who went undefeated with the Phils including 2 post-season wins — all inked deals with the World Champions avoiding arbitration hearings.

Hamels, who went 14-10 with a 3.09 ERA in the regular season and established himself as the club’s ace winning 4 post-season games including 1 World Series win and 6 great innings in the decisive 5th game, led the way inking a 3-year, $20.5M deal with the Phils.

AP Sports Writer Dan Gelston describes Hamels’ deal, his reaction to it and summarizes Hamels’ season for Yahoo sports;

The deal avoids an arbitration hearing and keeps the 25-year-old Hamels in Philadelphia through the 2011 season. Hamels went 4-0 in the postseason with a 1.80 ERA as the Phillies claimed their first championship since 1980. He won the first game in three playoff series and took the MVP award in the NL championship series against the Dodgers.

Hamels, who lives in Philadelphia year round, said he still gets goosebumps every time he watches the World Series highlights video and believes the roster is still good enough to contend for years.

“If I’m able to go out there and repeat, I think it’s just going to make it a really nice, sweet time for this baseball city,” Hamels said.

Reliever Ryan Madson, who was 4-2 with a 3.05 ERA in 76 games and finished the season as primary set-up man for perfect 48-48 closer Brad Lidge, reached agreement with the Phillies on a 3-year, $12M deal.  AP Sports Writer Rob Maaddi outlines  the deal with Madson and Phillies GM Amaro’s thoughts;

“Ryan has emerged as a quality setup reliever and big game pitcher,” general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. said in a statement. “We’re very happy that he will be part of our bullpen for at least another three years.”

The deal calls for Madson to receive a $1 million signing bonus, $2 million this season, $4.5 million in 2010 and $4.5 million in 2011. He would have been eligible for free agency after next season, and the deal is unusual because many of agent Scott Boras’ clients opt to become free agents before agreeing to long-term deals.

He can earn $1.5 million annually in performance bonuses if he becomes a closer: $150,000 each for 30, 35, 40 and 45 games finished; $200,000 each for 50 and 55, and $250,000 each for 60 and 65.

Popular centerfielder Shane Victorino, one of the heroes of the Phillies World Championship run, inked a deal for 2009 worth $3.125 million.  The Ticker news service  recaps Victorino’s season;

Victorino hit a grand slam home run in the National League Division Series against Milwaukee and a game-tying homer in Game Four of the NLCS against Los Angeles.

Victorino, originally a sixth-round draft pick of the Dodgers in 1999, hit .293 with 14 home runs, 58 RBI and 36 stolen bases in 146 games last season, his fourth with Philadelphia.

In addition, mid-season acquisition strarter Joe Blanton also came to terms with the club on a one-year deal worth $5.475 million.  Blanton, it will be recalled, won 2 of his 3 post-season starts (the 3rd - a no-decision) and was the first pitcher in decades to homer in the World Series.  AP Baseball Writer Ronald Blum recalls the scene for Yahoo sports as Blanton homered amidst the Phils’ 10-2 World Series game 4 win;

Blanton shut his eyes, swung and became the first pitcher in 34 years to homer in the Series.

Still unsigned are power-hitting 1st baseman Ryan Howard, outfielder  Jayson Werth who clubbed 24 homers, had 67 RBIs and hit .273 and reliever Chad Durbin — all potential arbitration cases.  Howard is on record asking for $18 million in arbitration.             

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5 year veteran 1st baseman Kevin Youkilis and the Boston Red Sox inked a four-year, $41 million deal 3 days ago.

Youkilis had a break-out season in 2008 hitting 29 homers, driving in 115 runs and hitting .312 in 145 games for the BoSox batting clean-up behind either Mike Lowell, who was often injured and used as DH in 2008, or  David Ortiz who was either injured or slumping for a large part of the season and who is generally the DH.  

The AP report notes:

The 29-year-old gets a $1 million signing bonus, $6 million this year, $9,125,000 in 2010 and $12 million in each of the following two seasons. Boston has a $13 million option for 2013 with a $1 million buyout.

Youkilis…. made just four errors in 125 games at first base, where he won a Gold Glove in 2007, then switched to third when Mike Lowell was injured.

Youkilis holds the major league record of 238 straight games at first base without an error, a streak that ended last June.

He finished third in AL MVP voting in 2008, behind Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia and Minnesota first baseman Justin Morneau.

“Kevin has been a mainstay for us and a big part of our major league club through a lot of successful seasons and a big part of our future and we solidified that with this move today,” general manager Theo Epstein said.

Youkilis, who first achieved fame in the noted baseball book, ‘Moneyball,’ made his debut in Boston’s magical 2004 season, capped off with the first Red Sox World Series title in 86 years. However, the next season was the most trying of his career, as he was shuttled between Boston and Triple-A Pawtucket.

Youkilis boasts a career .289 BA and got 2 doubles in 9 AB in Boston’s  2007 World Series triumph and hit 3 homers in the ALCS as the Red Sox rallied from a 3 games to 1 deficit to defeat the Cleveland Indians.

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